How to Start an Event Management Company If you have the knack for putting together an event, connecting with people and arranging talks and pitches, then you might want to consider starting an event management business

We all have participated in events at some point, be it large scale or small scale, personal or professional. While the participation is fun and enjoyable, organizing one requires a lot of effort. Venue hunting, inviting the guests, arranging for logistics, food, etc takes a lot of time. This need has opened up huge business opportunity in the event management space in India.

According to EY-EEMA (Event and Entertainment Management Association) report, the Indian events and activation industry is expected to cross INR 10,000 crore mark by 2020-21. The report revealed that the industry was at INR 5,631 crore in 2016-17 and has been growing at a 16% CAGR.

Businesses share an important bond with the events management space as holding big scale conferences, workshop, pitches take a huge amount of work. If you have the knack for putting together an event, connecting with people and arranging talks and pitches, then you might want to consider starting an event management business.

How To Get Started

Sandeep Lodha, CEO, Weddingz.in explained that it is very important to understand that events are extremely important for the organizing brand. Events bring in connections and partnerships on the table, it is also a big source of marketing for the brand. So if you are looking to start up their business in this space, you need to genuinely identify a problem existing in the space and retrofit a methodology to solve the problem.

According to Mazhar Nadiadwala, Managing Director, Dome Entertainment, these are some important things to keep in mind before you start up:

• You need to create a robust business plan with a strong vision
• You should understand your niche and define your core competencies,
• Make sure to have a marketing and PR Plan
• Create different proposals or pitches for your prospective clients and vendors – Elevator pitches, pitches for occasional meets, pitches in conferences meet etc.
• Start networking and meet groups and institutions who can give you some business
• Focus on hiring good managers who believe in your vision.
• Keep in mind, you need to start small, go big

Investments

If you are worried about investments, then rest assured because you can begin your events management business with low monetary investment. To get started all you need is a good laptop, which can cost up to INR 35,000. Major investment will be a strong team comprising of 5-6 skilled workers, which will be your recurring monthly cost of INR 1-1.5 lakh. According to Ruchi Garg, CEO and co-founder of Venuelook, you will also need a working capital investment of around INR 1–3 lakh per month to take care of running costs. However, the costs may differ depending upon the kind of event services you are offering.

Once you start getting clients, you may go out for raising funds for scaling up your services.

We recommend that you reinvest at least 10 per cent of all receipts back towards capital goods required for events as it is a good way to consolidate the business in the first 10 years of operations.

Revenue

According to experts, for any event management company, the basic revenue is generated from the agency fees which generally range between 10-20 per cent depending upon your negotiation with the client. Apart from this, the revenue generation depends upon the type of event and the kind of services offered.

If you are only helping in co-ordination, you can charge good agency fees. But if you are the one completely responsible for the production and overall execution of the event, you might also hike up the price of the equipment and materials needed for the event, which will generate more revenue for the company. The range may change depending on the field of event one specializes or depends on the clients willingness to spend.